The 21st and Magnolia Theatre Troupe
by DreamCatcher37
Summary: Displaced by fate, found by destiny, four desperate kids wind up with fragments of Metroman's powers. They're taken in by the Defender of Metrocity himself-but danger follows them, and soon the city's facing a threat worse than Tighten. (Incomplete.)
1. Gypsy and the Jag

Gypsy and the Jag

"Dani! Dan-ni! Come on, wake up, ya lump! It's a beautiful day in Metro City—the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Shay's bringing in new arrivals! It's time to GET UP!"

The ten-year-old called DJ punctuated every other word with a blow from Dani's own pillow. The girl was up by the second sentence (being homeless, she was a light sleeper) but DJ kept on anyway. At the end of his rant, he threw her pillow back at her head, and fled the sunlit ballroom. His two younger friends followed him. Dani heard them go, whooping and laughing all the way.

Danielle—better known as Dani or, less commonly, Gypsy—raised her head. She swept dark, curly hair out of her face and looked around. Wake-up calls like that were common at the abandoned theatre on 21st and Magnolia. Dani had chosen the ballroom on the second floor because of its isolation. Somehow, the younger kids kept finding her.

"I ought to move to the roof…" she muttered, testing out her rusty voice. She didn't talk to others much. In fact, she took a night job that involved little socializing. The mid-afternoon sun streaming in through the ballroom's half-boarded, half-shattered glass wall told her it was early. Too early. Dani rolled out of bed, brushed off her "WWMMD?" shirt, and headed out.

The hallway winding through the upper floors was a maze of boxes, debris, and sleeping spots. The theatre hosted more than 50 teens and kids (it had a new name every week). The most popular places to camp out were the green rooms under the stage and the main auditorium itself. Still, Dani had to step over two sleeping girls on her way through. She envied them. They'd been spared the DJ treatment. Then again…she was important. She had responsibilities.

"Lieutenant Dan!" someone called from the auditorium balcony. Dani could hear excited chatter just outside the balcony door. The whole theatre troupe must've been gathered to see the new kids. Surely, they didn't need her…

She swept aside the tattered plastic sheet that served as the door. A chaotic scene spanned out in front of her. The 21st and Magnolia homeless troupe, in all it's glory.

In its' heyday, the theatre was a glorious thing to behold. The scene of many Shakespeare plays and movie screenings—Dani was sure. At some point the color scheme was gilt gold and red velvet. In its current dilapidated state, it was half wrecked, and peppered with all hues. Clothes, blankets, bags, graffiti, and people were scattered all through the huge room. A busy cacophony of the homeless childrens' making. They'd come from all different places, all different histories, to find shelter there (in the safest city on Earth). Dani loved all of it. It was her home.

On that afternoon, dozens of kids had gathered to gawk at the newcomers. They were gathered on every surface. They hung from the décor and the scaffolding, perched on the edge of the high balcony. Matthias yelled "Lieutenant Dan!" again, and chased her with DJ. "The Jag's got 'em!" he yelled. Dani's pulse picked up.

She reached the balcony's low rail (and pulled two kids back from the drop on instinct). Sure enough, the three new kids had been trooped to the middle of the stage. They were being terrorized by Eddie—code name Jag—with all helpless eyes watching them. Tense whispers circled the room. Eddie had just started in.

Kids on the run from parents and foster systems sometimes took on code names to keep themselves hidden. Kids gave them to one another, too. (Dani's old one referenced her obvious Rroma descent.) It was rumored the Jag got his from the criminals he mixed with during the day. Tall, white, 18, and built like a tank, Eddie was in charge of security in the theatre. He ran a small group of cronies with Victor. He and Vic ran card tricks and small (semi-legal) cons to get income. Dani always thought they took less-legal side jobs and pocketed the money. Of course, she never had any proof. Kids just stayed out of his way.

"Bet you're runaways. Look at you, you couldn't survive a day on the streets." Eddie taunted them. He moved in front of the oldest kid like they were squaring off.

The littlest one—she couldn't have been more than 7—spoke up. "We slept in a park for three days!" she cried.

"Did you now?" She shouldn't have said that. "I bet you're lying. I bet you're spies. Spill it—where are you really from?"

A couple rallying cries came from boys gathered at the edge of the stage. Eddie's band, ready to join in. Dani frantically scanned the scene for help. Shay (the artist girl that worked in a popular park) was standing at the edge of the scene, silent and frozen. Victor (a creepy teenager with greasy brown hair) stood close to the new kids' stuff with his arms crossed. Dani took a quick look at the new girls. They were huddled together on the stage, under the scrutinizing eyes of everyone in the unfamiliar place. One was dark-skinned and dark-haired with glasses, maybe Mexican, and the other two were blonde, white and maybe sisters. The girl with glasses was standing tall, trying not to be intimidated. All three stuck close together—like that would save them from Eddie.

"What happened? Where's Rhonda? Where's Mr. J?" Dani asked the kids.

"Rhonda went to grab Mr. J. She couldn't stop Eddie neither." DJ answered.

The girls only had a minute more of Eddie. The theatre's director was on the way. Dani worked directly under Mr. J and his second-in-command, Rhonda, but she had little power over the teenage security guard. She was smaller than him. Until Mr. J got there, Eddie had free reign.

The older sister was talking frantically. "We met up in a camp outside the rail yard. We're from Illinois, okay? Just looking for a place to stay."

"I'm real sure about that." Eddie said sarcastically.

"It's true, okay?! We've been walking around the city for a few days. We've got nowhere else to go!"

The brunette and the little one nodded in agreement. Eddie _pretended_ to think it over. The truth was, he could smell how green they were. Those kids hadn't been homeless for long. Three months, he'd guess, at most. They came from money, too—which meant they still had something of value on 'em. Something he could take.

"Hmm….I don't believe you. Search 'em!" he commanded.

Boys leapt up on stage and headed for the girls. Eddie shoved Victor out of the way and went for the bags first. They had no authority to search people's stuff, everyone but the new girls knew it. Dani found her voice.

"Hey! You can't do this!" she shouted down at the stage. Eddie noticed her, at last.

"Looking mighty brave up there, Dani-boy! Or is your name Gypsy?"

"You don't get to call me that." Dani said, quieter than before. The word sounded so wrong coming out of his mouth…it was a taunt, a slur, when he said it.

"Whatever. Just stay out of this, Dani-boy." Eddie went back to the bags. The littlest tried to protest, but boys kept all of them back. It only took Eddie a few seconds to find what he was looking for. Dani saw him pull out a silver chain and discreetly slip it in his pocket.

"That's ours! Put it back!" the brunette suddenly shouted. She'd seen him. Eddie straightened up and Victor got between his friend and the girls, everyone on the defensive.

"Put what back?" Eddie challenged her to keep talking.

"I didn't see him take anything." Victor chimed in.

"Yes, he did! It's in his left pocket!"

"They sound like troublemakers, Vic. And we don't take in troublemakers here. Throw them out!"

Eddie's voice boomed and the theatre burst into motion.

The girls shouted and clung to each other. Eddie's boys moved in, and two adults burst onto the stage.

"What do you think you're doin?!" Mr. J's deep voice sent the action grinding to a halt.

Mr. J. Walker was possibly the only person Eddie feared. J, an ex-priest, founded and ran the makeshift shelter. Tall, dreadlocked, and usually stone-faced, he was a benevolent ruler, but still had power over the whole theatre. (He also had a different sports team hat every day. No one knew how he got them.) Rhonda—also black, younger, with micro-braids down her back—stood beside him with her ever-present binder. She wasn't happy. Neither was Mr. J.

"Eddie, what's going on here?" he demanded.

"These three are troublemakers, sir. They tried to start a fight. Looks like they got some stolen stuff—"

"Sir, he took Kat's bracelet!" the brunette told Mr. J.

Eddie glared daggers at her, and Dani tried to figure out if the girl was brave or just stupid. Mr. J could believe her claim. Eddie had been involved in some _incidents_ before, but the girl was a stranger. J just looked at Eddie and the teen acted innocent as possible.

"She's lying! How long have I been protecting this place, man? What would it be without me?" (Victor, feeling a bit like chopped liver, rolled his eyes behind Eddie.)

"It'd be less crazy, that's for sure!" Mr. J turned to the girl. "What's your name?"

"Julie, sir. Short for Juleka. This is Katherine—Kat—and her little sister, Anne. We're homeless."

"We all are, kid. You see him take it?"

"Yes, sir. It's in his left pocket." Kat nodded.

J looked back at Eddie.

"They're liars and thieves, sir. I didn't take it. We should kick 'em out before they bring cops to our door…"

"I saw him, he took it."

The words were out of Dani's mouth before she even knew she spoke them. All eyes in the theatre were on her.

Mr. J took a step towards her and asked, "You saw it yourself?"

Julie's bravery was infectious. Dani figured if that girl could stick up to the Jag, she could, too. She stepped up onto the rail, jumped about 3 feet down onto the boards of old scaffolding, and walked closer to the light.

"I saw it, all right. It was silver, and it's in his left pocket." Yeah, she felt mighty brave up there. She pointed right at the aforementioned pocket—like a judge on high.

Mr. J motioned for Eddie to stand right in front of him. Eddie knew when he was beat. With slumped shoulders and hate in his eyes, he turned out his pockets. The bracelet—a sterling silver charm bracelet, with crosses and birthstones—went into Mr. J's hand.

"They're still troublemakers." Eddie insisted, still trying to fake concern for the theatre.

Kat stuck her tongue out at him.

"We've got no room for troublemakers here."

"You're right, Eddie." Mr. J said. "Get your stuff and get out."

Stunned silence filled the theatre.

"But I'm—you need me! You need me here, J!"

"We don't need thieves, or thugs! We don't need you harrassin' younger girls, or wastin' resources to show off, or bringin' criminals back here! Get your stuff, or we'll pawn it for you!"

All fifty-plus kids waited with held breath for Eddie to throw a punch.

He didn't.

In what was probably the smartest move of his life, he simply walked away, dropping off the stage into the orchestra pit, going under the stage into the green rooms. Rhonda sent a kid to trail him—make sure he was doing as told—but Eddie wasn't any trouble. Victor sent a betrayed look to Mr. J and followed Eddie. A few other boys left, too. Dani didn't watch them go. She had to look away. It had been a long time coming—but she still had a hand in their banishment. The whole theatre watched them emerge from the green rooms at the back of the stage, and leave through the emergency exit. When the door banged shut, and the sound dissipated, it was quiet. Dani certainly didn't know what to say.

Little Anne, clinging to her sister's leg, spoke up. "He was a jerk." She blew a raspberry at the exit and a laugh rippled through the crowd. It was a relieved sound. No one was more relieved than the girls scattered 'round the theatre.

Rhonda motioned for Dani to join them, and she approached the new girls while Mr. J inspected the charm bracelet, lost in thought. Dani climbed down the scaffolding and walked up to the stage. Rhonda was busy asking the girls all the necessary questions. She took down the names they gave her, where they were from, and what they could do for work. The three were really green, but she'd worked with worse. Rhonda made sure all the kids had some kind of job—and in rare cases of emergencies, like a fire, she'd use the details she'd written down to keep track of everyone. Make sure they were safe. She and Mr. J had learned from Tighten's attack, just over a year ago.

Rhonda was finishing up her notes when Dani stepped up on stage.

"I'll take care of them. Show them the ropes, teach them, everything." She said. The three new girls got a close look at the one that spoke up for them. She wasn't as old as they'd thought, maybe 14 to Julie and Kat's 13. Tan—Kat thought Indian, Julie was closer with her guess of Romani. Her black hair framed her face, bringing out dark hazel eyes. Her eyes looked too old for the rest of her face. They made the stranger seem wise, in a survivalist sort of way. Kat saw the color scheme on her "WWMMD?" shirt (Kat had an eye for fashion)—Metro Man's colors. "What Would Metro Man Do?". She must've been a fan. Anne just wondered if she liked animals.

"You've got a job, too, Dani. I take care of new arrivals, it's okay." Rhonda replied.

"Your job just got a whole lot harder. I'll take them, just till they're on their feet." Dani gently told the older woman. That was her job as Lieutenant, she took on projects and helped out where she could.

"We'll hang with her, it's fine with us." Kat said. Julie nodded. She figured they owed this 'Dani'.

Rhonda sighed and gave in. "Okay—you'll bunk with her tonight, tomorrow we'll make other arrangements. Welcome to the…what is it this week?"

"The Butt Hut!" someone shouted.

"Thanks, Kate." Rhonda rolled her eyes. "It'll have a better name next week." Scribbling in her binder, a thousand new problems on her mind, Rhonda walked off.

Mr. J didn't go with her. He took her place and held the bracelet, examining it.

"This could feed us for a week." He handed it back to its owner, Kat. "Keep it safe."

"We will." Julie said.

"Sorry about your secur-it-y." Anne said (she couldn't pronounce the last word).

"Sorry you had to see that." Mr. J started moving around all four of them, delivering an important message to everyone listening. "But since you have, there's some important things you should know. We don't tolerate thieves here. We've got clothes, bedding, and food to go around. We're in the safest city on Earth, guys, we've got it really good. There's no need for that. We share what we got, and take care of each other, 'cuz no one else will. Still with me?"

The four girls nodded.

"We do everything legal. If cops trace you back here, everyone in this building's going to jail, back to the foster system, or back to parents they ran away from. I dunno where you came from or how you got here. But that's not a fate you'd wish on anyone—right?"

Nods again. (Dani forgot she'd already gotten this speech.)

"Stay here as long as you want, and come back any time. Just work for your keep, we all work here. Respect this place. And you'll do just fine."

One more round of nods and Mr. J walked off the stage, satisfied. (He shouted at DJ and Matthias to get down from the rail on his way out. They didn't listen.)

"So…" Dani turned to the frazzled girls and brightly asked, "Time for the tour?"

Most of the 50-plus kids went back to whatever they were doing. The theatre was back to its usual crazy state. Scratch that, it was even crazier—kids were showing off, making noise, and asking the new girls questions everywhere they went. Dani did her best to shoo them away, and give the new girls a tour like J would give them.

"All right, first lemme show you who you'll be working with! You met Shay in the park, didn't you?"

"Yes, she was doing amazing things with spray-paint." Julie answered. They caught sight of the girl again. Sullen Shay was climbing a staircase up to the balcony, box of paints and tools in hand. She was a girl with old, round glasses and mousey brown hair down to her hips. Her hands, glasses, and hair were always speckled with paint. The three girls had watched her create stunning space scenes with cheap aerosol colors.

"Yeah, she's our top artist. Gets to work the best spots, like the plaza. If you can draw you could work for her." Dani darted up to a group of kids chilling in theatre seats, and drummed on the back of a boy's chair in time to the tune he was strumming. "This here's Arthur X and the love of his life, Lola."

'Lola' was written on the neck of his old guitar. He gave the girls a chill, welcoming smile.

"What are we, invisible?" demanded a boy drumming on his neighbor with tape-covered drumsticks.

"Girls, this is the band."

"Hello, band!" Anne said with a grin.

"We ain't just the band! We're gonna be the most famous musicians in Metro City someday!"

"That we are." Arthur X agreed.

As soon as the tour continued, and the band continued their jam session, Kat said, "Arthur was cute!"

"I saw you giving him that flirty look." Julie said.

"His boyfriend in New York thinks he's cute, too." Dani pointed out.

Anne's laughter was louder than the band.

"Moving on…We got two fortune tellers over there, Hester and Eli. The freerunners are out for the day. You could do card tricks, or magic, or just beg around. If you wanna work in the theatre—"

Dani was cut off by a nine-year-old boy swinging upside-down from a balcony rope ladder, just in front of her. The kid shrieked with laughter, flipped down and ran off. Two more kids followed him.

"…Don't work in here, these children are ANIMALS." Dani finished.

Julie was laughing. "They're certainly energetic!"

"You can say that again." Kat added.

"They're certainly energetic." Anne said.

Elsewhere in the theatre, someone threw boxes down from a great height, cymbals crashed, a firecracker went off, and kids laughed. (All four girls thought they were happy sounds. Sounds of life.)

"We could always use more security, you know, taking fireworks away from people before they burn down the place." Dani continued the tour around the back of the big auditorium. "Extra hands to help me settle civil disputes. If you're good at math you can help Rhonda, like the Math Wiz. That's Max. We got a kitchen crew here, you can help run errands and get food. We do dinner, by the way, so no one starves. You get an allowance for working in here."

The 14-year-old led them through the creaking, graffiti-muraled door, into what used to be the lobby. It had a high ceiling and still retained some of its old beauty. The floors were chipped tile-white and glittery. High windows let golden sunlight stream in. The front doors had been totally boarded up. Behind what used to be the old snack counter, kids in ancient aprons were busy cooking something. A kid in a wheelchair playing cards shouted a greeting to the new girls. They waved at her and her poker buddy. Kids were scattered even out there, the new girls found. Two teens bounced a ball to each other, quoting Shakespeare. It seemed all the city's homeless kids were gathered in the theatre.

"Here we have two of our actors, showing off." Dani quipped. "And here's one-third of our dance crew. Namine, these are the new girls."

Namine—a dark-skinned ballerina, using the banister of the grand staircase to limber up for the late shift—called to Dani as she led the girls up.

"Hope they take to our line of work. Gypsy, you used to dance with us, when are you coming back?" she said with a British accent.

"Maybe someday. Don't pull anything tonight!"

"I never do!" With a smile, Namine went back to her stretching.

A little kid on the staircase was having trouble with her shoelaces. As Dani stopped to help her, Anne whispered to her sister that she was tired. Kat gave her a piggyback ride. It was how they'd travelled, Kat didn't even think about it. Julie took the extra bag.

"I like these people already." Anne whispered in Kat's ear.

"Now, about dues and fees." Dani straightened up and said.

"Still like 'em, Anne?" Kat asked.

"They're not too bad. When you get back every morning, or afternoon, or night, you show the guy—or girl, or person—by the stage what you made. You keep half of it. Sometimes more." Dani led them up the chaotic stairs.

"Keep half?" Julie asked. Other camps and shelters demanded more just to get in. "Keep it for what?"

"Buy stuff. Or save it. Use it to get out of here. It's up to you." Dani answered.

"That's what ya do with money. I thought you were smart!" Anne said, sleepily. Julie gave her a fake-mad scowl.

They were almost at the ballroom. "I figured you could bunk up here. There's rumors it's haunted, but I just spread those for some privacy. No one's gonna go through your stuff, you'll be better off up here till the buzz dies down." Dani opened the main double-doors, and they stepped into the ballroom.

"Whoa!" Anne yelled.

It was run-down, sure, but beautiful too. The walls were ivory, and barely marked up. Some floorboards had been pried up for firewood but the floor still reflected the skyline outside. They could even see Metro City Tower. But Anne, Kat, and Julie were focused on the ceiling. It bore a mural of the night sky—thousands of stars, completely untouched.

"WE'RE ROOMING IN HERE!" Kat yelled.

"Oh. Okay then…" (Dani almost fell over at Kat's outburst.) "I should've cleaned up more…here, you must be tired, I'll grab blankets and stuff…"

Despite herself, Dani had started to care for the girls.

15 minutes later they were all lounging on old mattresses. The new girls were getting used to their surroundings and sharing a bag of chips—dug up by their new roommate. They talked long past sunset. It hadn't even been a day, and the new girls were part of the theatre troupe.


	2. Theatre Troupe

Theatre Troupe

A crazy, wonderful week had passed. The three girls had long since been enfolded into the group. Dani helped them dabble in different careers. Only Kat had decided on what she wanted to do. She'd been set on being a fashion designer before she ended up on the streets. Putting together jewelry from stray beads (and whatever else she could find) would bring in some money. On Monday evening, she was sitting in the theatre with other kids, working on a necklace, waiting for the adventure that was Monday night dinner.

Thursday through Sunday were the busy days for entertainers and beggars. Monday was their Saturday. The theatre could afford more of the bulk food for communal dinner, so there was more to go around. Everyone put aside drama for Monday night dinner. It was a big deal.

"There's no way you saw it!" DJ was yelling at Tony.

"Totally did! I saw the invisible car, it was out on Traction Avenue, goin' like 50! It was awesome!"

Julie, organizing supplies for Kat, asked, "How did you know it was Megamind? The car's supposed to be invisible." When she was comfortable, like then, everything about her seemed smart. How she sat straight, how she moved her hands, how she smirked after asking Tony. Dani—sitting casually to the group's left—figured that's how she survived the foster system. Being smart. That's why she had to leave, too, people resented her for it. It made her unadoptable. (Kat, Anne, and Dani loved her for it.)

"…The car had a newspaper on the front grille! That's how I seen the invisible car!" Tony cried.

"How do you know it wasn't just a newspaper blowin' in the wind?" DJ asked, copying Julie.

"Man, you ruin all my stories!" Tony pushed DJ over, and the younger kids started a wrestling match. They rolled over the back of the seat and onto someone's bedroll.

Anne was determined to finish what they started—she took a flying leap and belly-flopped onto them. The kids shrieked and laughed.

"Hey, Tone, you think Megamind was off stopping some crime?" asked a girl practicing an old violin.

"Hope he was taking out those star-street thugs, they're scary!" shouted Kate from the balcony.

"Hardly likely." Dani said, voice tight.

The four girls had gotten close. They knew each other's stories…at least what they were comfortable sharing. Danielle didn't like Megamind. Her shoulders got tense and she got quieter than usual whenever people praised him. Julie and Kat suspected she had bad memories involving him. She'd been homeless, theatre-less, and in the city when he took over. They'd been more open with Dani about their pasts. They just hoped in time, she'd open up too. (Kat hoped it was soon. She was impatient and loved to gossip.)

"I bet he was off stopping crime with Minion." Violin girl said.

"It's the safest city in the world again, thanks to those two!" shouted a boy swinging from the scaffolding.

"Then how come the mayor act like we're a problem?" the wheelchair girl asked, from her spot by the motley group.

"Megamind's the defender of the city. He doesn't control the mayor." Julie stated.

"Mayor's a hopeless fool!" the kids chorused. Anne shouted it. Like it was a curse word.

"Megamind could do a lot more." Dani muttered.

Jessica—the girl doing wheelies in the wheelchair—heard her. "Hey, you remember the Metro Man days. Things weren't so rosy then either. Homeless kid could get thrown in juvie for stealing food—'least this guy's not a rich status-quo lover."

Dani just nodded.

"Wasn't it everyone's dream to end up here?" Jessica asked the scattered crowd. "To get off some train and see that tower? And, like, know you'd made it to the place where anyone could be anything they wanted to be?"

A bunch of kids grinned at that.

"Yeah, I remember!"

"That tower's the biggest thing I ever saw."

"You're mom's the biggest—quit hitting me!"

"Tone, you an' me an' DJ had that dream, 'member?" Matthias asked.

"Yep!"

"Me too." Julie said.

"Mom always wanted to see it." Kat said.

"Me and—and my partner had that dream, too." Dani said. Julie was going to ask who her partner was when Anne stood up and shouted,

"Mom always wanted to see Metro Man's abs!"

"ANNIE!" Kat shouted back.

"It's true!" …Shadowkat, what are abs?" Anne used her sister's new code-name.

"They're none of your beeswax! And I'm your sister, I'm just Kat." Just Kat reached for her mom's charm bracelet. Her good, Christian mother's charm bracelet. Kat added a little mask charm to it to symbolize the theatre troupe. She and the other kids found out if she was quiet and quick, she could gather fallen beads from under shelves at craft stores. Kat was built thicker than her sister, but she was good at sneaking. Thus, Shadowkat. It was impossible to say if Kat's mom (who'd died of cancer seven months before in a small Illinois town) would approve of the borderline-stealing. Kat thought she wouldn't. But the 13-year-old was taking care of her baby sister, that was what mattered. Their mom would've been proud of them for surviving that long.

"I wanna see Mom's bracelet again!" Anne grabbed for it.

"Hey! Careful!"

"I am!"

"Is this what having sisters is like?" Dani asked Julie.

"Apparently." The girl in glasses addressed Anne. "Hey, it's almost dinnertime! Why don't you go put that away?"

Anne nodded, still gazing at the charms. "It looks good, Shadowkat." She said before darting off.

"She wants me to call her Angel all the time." Kat told the other girls, all sisterly exasperation.

"Angel's a good name." Dani said. The little girl earned her nickname with her sweet face, love of animals, and snatches of church songs sung at all hours.

"She's a little demon." Kat stated.

"She does snore." Julie pointed out.

As soon as Anne the snorer returned, Rhonda called dinner. Littlest first. Anne, DJ, Matthias, and Tony clambered over each other to get there before the other. It was good, Kat thought, that they all had kids their age to play with.

Dinner was served on donated and borrowed (okay, smuggled) plates. It was far cheaper to just wash 'em than get disposable paper ones. Kids moved in seething, giggling crowds into the lobby, then out into the theatre, sitting anywhere they pleased with plates balanced on their knees. The four girls sat together, of course. Mr. J sat on the edge of the stage, always eating after everyone else had their fill, always the meal's entertainment. A kid that could beatbox sat by him (holding her own plate), and Arthur X sat beside her with Lola. Rhonda sat on the edge of the stage next to Mr. J (ankles crossed all proper). If anyone ever asked Mr. J. Walker why he left the priesthood, he'd tell them his freestyle rapping skills weren't being used properly. He could do anything with words, as long as he had a beat.

"What do y'all wanna hear tonight?" he asked the crowd.

"Talk about Eddie!" a girl shouted.

"Yeah, and the new girls!" a boy added.

"And the near-miss Ceara had with the cops!"

"Yeah, I got away from 'em just in time!"

"Talk about Victor too!"

"I spit a loogie from the balcony and hit Sally Rae on the head!"

Mr. J laughed. "No, Brad, you did not!"

Most of the theatre was laughing (some with full mouths).

"All right, settle down, settle down, I got somethin'."

Arthur started a chord, the beatboxer chimed in, Rhonda clapped along to the rhythm like a PTA mom at church, and Mr. J started in. He made up rhymes and summarized the past week. It was entertainment, the local news, and catharsis. Little jokes and clever things sent kids laughing and shoving each other. Most leaned back, listened, ate, and let the stress of the week melt away. The new girls hadn't heard it before. They were rapt through the whole meal.

When it was over, Dani asked them, "Was that awesome or what?"

"Yeah, pretty cool!" Julie admitted. (She was more of a Beatles fan.)

"He just made all of that up?" Kat asked.

"Yep! And that act was just the beginning. The real party starts after the meal." Dani said.

And it did. After everyone was finished and the place cleaned up, kids didn't go to bed. The spare lights illuminating the stage stayed up. Roving bands of kids slumped around in their seats, digesting the biggest meal they'd had all week. The next "act" was slow, nothing too crazy yet. A girl got up on stage with a cello bow and an electric guitar (of all things). Arthur plugged her into the amp. She dedicated the new kind of performance to Jessica and started to play the guitar like a cello.

The sound made by the guitar and bow was…haunting. There was silence from the crowd for a solid five minutes. When she was done, the girl stood up and said, "Anyway—that was Wonderwall." That joke got her a few laughs.

Two teens in ridiculous wigs took the stage next. They spouted off lines from the beginning of Romeo and Juliet—two enemies arguing. No one had much schooling, no one knew what the words meant, but the way they played it (like a Madea comedy) had most kids in stitches. Sullen Shay was practically pushed on stage. Someone found old white curtains in a closet. They hung one up on the scaffolding near the back, and at the crowd's request, she did an alien landscape in stunning colors. Planets in magenta, a sun in red, planets and buildings in aqua and gold. Out in the real world she was kind of miserable, but when she got paint and a good surface, plain Shay really blossomed. She took a bow in front of her finished piece and kids applauded. (She'd sell it the next day for good money.)

Some band kids had started a jam session on stage. People were coming out of their food comas. Two boys loudly told a story of a cray happenstance in the park (slightly exaggerated). A kid in a bright green sports jacket showed off a new break-dance routine, testing it on others before it hit the streets. (Namine and a ring-dancer shouted some pointers at him. Specifically, "get a fashion sense!".) Arthur X came back out to do a song on Lola. Many girls screamed.

Julie got up from her seat. In a bout of bravery, she walked up on stage, and started an improv show.

She picked people from the crowd to help her in games. They didn't know what was going on at first, but if there was one thing homeless street artists could do, it was think on their feet. No one picked Julie out to be the funny type. That just made her display funnier. She had such a keen eye for details and observations. That's what she based her improve on. She got an ovation from the crowd when she was done. They saluted her by her code name—Eagle Eye—and she bowed dramatically, jumping off stage.

"We should've named you Lion Heart or something!" Dani said when her friend got back to her seat.

The jam session picked up. Boldened by Julie's move, Kat and Anne got on stage next. They sang a bit of a song, from some musical, and laughed as they ran back to Dani and Julie. The ballerina danced, the band did a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, and the violin girl led them in something upbeat and pop-ish.

Namine appeared behind the girls. "Danielle, if you don't dance, I'm never talking to you again."

"Okay."

"You're going to do it?"

"Why are you talking to me? You said—"

"Danielle." Namine fixed her in a glare. The other girls were right by Dani, they heard everything—and they were staring at her. Namine was deathly serious. Dani looked like a deer in headlights.

"I haven't done that in so long—" the Rroma girl said. "—Don't you blackmail me!"

"Go on, you said you used to love it!"

Like a true best friend, Kat started pushing her out of her seat.

"Go! Go! I believe in you!" she was yelling.

Anne joined in, and so did Julie. Dani called them all traitors. She had to stand up, the others were practically crowded in her seat. Anne lay there so she couldn't sit back down. Dani caught sight of Mr. J, in his own seat across the theatre. He caught her gaze. She couldn't hear him over the noise, but his mouth formed the words,

"Go, Gypsy girl. You can do it."

She looked at the other dancers and partyers, gathered around and on the stage. Her friends wanted her to. So what the heck.

Gypsy shed her hoodie, going up on stage in her loose t-shirt and old leggings. The violin started something more classical, folksy—Siuil a Run. She always did best to the classical stuff. Voices fell quiet when she closed her eyes and started in. Gypsy lost herself in the music, reveling in how good it felt, after all that time. She kept time to the instruments and the theatre kids' clapping. Spinning, swaying, worshipping the music—all eyes were on her as she moved like the wind.

The only thing that stopped her was the need for air. She wasn't as fit as she was a year ago. She could've gone from Siuil a Run to whatever came next, but her body made her stop. She caught her breath with arms open to the crowd and a grin on her face.

Julie was one of the first to rise. Kids applauded Gypsy offstage. Her heart was still beating hard, and she was thrilled—if bashful—as she walked back to her friends.

The band struck up another old song. This one, a wordless swing number. It was a real party song. J got up and pulled Rhonda from her seat. She was protesting the whole way to the center aisle, but Mr. J swept her into a dance anyway. Rhonda tilted her head back and laughed. Someone wolf-whistled, someone else shouted, and kids took to all available spaces. The night dissolved into one big dance party. No one thought it would end.

Some of the younger kids had drifted off to bed. Anne was almost asleep in Kat's arms. Mr. J and Rhonda were dancing center stage when something caught J's eye.

Not something. Someone.

A little kid at the back of the auditorium was trying frantically to signal him. The kid was pointing at the doors to the lobby. What in the world? Mr. J's steps slowed. He let go of Rhonda and watched the kid. Faintly, he could hear something over the music.

He signaled for the band to quiet down. Either they didn't see, or they didn't care. So he shouted at them to stop. At the sound of his command, and the look of worry on his face, the room fell quiet.

Everyone heard it then. The sound boomed out from the back wall, filing the big space and making everyone in it feel small. It was the unmistakable sound of a battering ram on the lobby doors.


	3. The Amazing Collapsible Safehouse

The Amazing Collapsible Safehouse

It was Dani—Lieutenant Dan—who broke the trance.

"SCATTER!" she screamed.

Then the whole auditorium was a flurry of motion and fear. They'd discussed what to do in that situation, but it had never happened. It _never_ should have happened.

The girls clung to each other, a survival instinct. Anne was awake and terrified. The banging still rang through the air, punctuating every few seconds, like a hellish alarm. Dani tried to drag them through the screaming, running crowd, but Kat's panicked brain remembered a very important item.

"Mom's bracelet!" she cried. "I've got to get it!"

"There's no time!" Dani tried to say. Her every instinct was telling her to run, like a scared animal.

Kat was gone in an instant. Anne's hands were still reaching out where she'd been holding her sister's sleeve, a moment before. The most impulsive member of the four climbed over their chairs, dodged into the aisle, and ran to the scaffolding. Everything around her was chaos. Kids were shoving anything they could grab into bags. Some were just fleeing, not knowing if the theatre was surrounded, not knowing where they were running to. Kat fought the crowd up onto the second floor and ran into the hallway. Two girls dashed past her. In a blind panic, Kat ran the wrong way, getting a good view of the lobby as she skidded to a stop. She was just in time to see the police swarm into the building.

She turned on her heels and ran straight to the ballroom. She practically power-slid to their beds. Where had Anne put the bracelet? Kat tore up their beds, shoving valuables and clothes into backpacks. She and Anne weren't going into the foster system. They couldn't. They'd be separated. Someone—several people—were thundering down the hallway to the ballroom. Kat found the bracelet (it fell out of a pillowcase) just as the doors banged open.

"What were you _thinking_?!" Julie yelled.

The three other girls rushed in. Dani started securing the doors.

"No talk time! Plan, now!" the Rroma girl called.

"Back out the balcony?" Kat offered. If she had a plan when she ran off, that was it.

"Cops are coming up the stairs! We're pinned down!" Julie said. She quickly gathered up bags with Kat.

Anne was busy looking for another way out. All the doors were being blocked, but the older girls were missing something.

"How about here?" Anne pointed to the old elevator doors.

All girls stopped and stared at it. Behind the ancient, closed doors was just a long shaft. The elevator car was taken out when the building was abandoned, there was nothing there.

"…It'll do." Dani said. "Kat, help me open this. Julie, drag a mattress here!"

"I don't like the sound of this…" Julie said, doing it anyway.

Kat and Dani tore boards away from the old elevator and pried open the ancient doors. It wasn't hard to do, the whole place was so old. Dust billowed out of the black hole. The girls paused to look down the two-and-a-half-story drop. They couldn't even see the bottom.

Dani kicked the mattress over the metal edge. They heard it hit with a _whumpf_.

"Okay, who's first?" she asked.

No one volunteered.

There was a sound of rattling at the doors. An adult male voice shouted to others. That was all the motivation they needed, no one protested the crazy idea.

"I'll make sure it's safe." Dani secured her backpack and stepped to the edge. She didn't let herself consider the possibilities—maybe there were metal mechanisms sticking up at the bottom, maybe the mattress landed on its side—she just stepped out over air.

Her whole body tensed up. It felt like her stomach was flying up into her chest. The only thing she had time to think was, 'Is this what flying feels like?' when she hit the mattress, hard.

Dust flew wildly around her head. She caught a mouthful of it when she turned around to stage-whisper, "It's safe!"

She scrambled out of the way just before Anne landed with a little "oof!". Dani pulled the little girl to the wall and caught the bag her sister tossed down.

"You all right?" Kat called.

"That was fun!" Anne called back. Dani reminded her to be quiet—there were cops in the lobby, just outside the elevator.

Kat hit the mattress legs-first, and the force of the fall almost made her faceplant. She crawled to safety and all three girls looked up at the open door.

Julie was silhouetted against the star mural. Her face was scared and conflicted. Her friends motioned for her to jump, but she was frozen. Julie didn't have a fear of heights, really. It was more of a…healthy respect. A healthy respect made worse by the fact that she couldn't even see her friends. Her Gryffindor-ism didn't help her when she was staring down a black abyss.

Bang! The battering ram was at work on the ballroom doors. Cops were about to get in! Julie looked from the door, to where her friends were. The door wouldn't hold. She'd be caught, and they'd find her friends…She held her breath, closed her eyes, and jumped. The seconds felt like years—abruptly ended by a harsh landing on an ancient mattress.

Julie scrambled off the bed just as a flashlight beam swept through the dust. All the girls held their breath. Something was amiss…Dani spotted it on the corner of the mattress—Julie's glasses. She snatched them up just before the light illuminated that spot.

The beam swept left, right, and then clicked off. A man in a police cap stuck his head in and looked around some. The girls were sure they were caught, but he pulled his head back, and shouted to the other cops to look in the bathrooms again. He didn't see anything. The girls could breathe.

They waited a few minutes in the dark. They made sure one another were all right. Julie dared ask the question, "What do we do now?" and Dani answered truthfully.

"We go back up." She pointed at the service ladder, little more than rusty iron bars stuck to the concrete wall.

"I don't like the sound of this, either." Julie said.

Kat was a bit less casual. "You mean we could've _climbed_ down?!" she hissed.

"No time, they'd have caught us! Hate me later—we need to get to the fourth floor!" Dani said back. Anne was already climbing. Dani slung her own bag on her back, Anne's bag on her front, and climbed after.

"Careful! No one fall!" Kat whispered up the line as she climbed after Dani.

Julie dusted off her glasses (a waste of time, more dust just settled on them). With a heavy sigh, she started climbing. She was super—SUPER—careful on her way back up.

Anne's head popped up over the edge of the metal plate. Everyone was relieved to hear there were no cops in the ballroom. Dani told the little one to keep climbing.

"What's on the fourth floor?" Anne asked.

"J's office."

They kept climbing. Something skittered by, clinging to a pipe. Dani glanced down and silently noted it was a long climb up—but a short trip down. They could see the ceiling and all the rusty machinery when they reached the fourth floor. It was the last floor the elevator stopped at.

And the doors were closed. It appeared fate wasn't on their side. Dani got Anne to climb a little higher, linked one arm through the ladder, and tried her best to pry the doors open.

On the other side, the ex-priest called Mr. J was desperately throwing together papers. His office-slash-apartment, in what used to be the projector room, was a wreck. A fire safe in the corner hung open. Rhonda stood by the ladder to the roof. She was more panicked than she'd ever been. More panicked than J had ever seen her, even when Tighten attacked.

"You—you can't do this—how'd they find us this time, James? You paid off the precinct for a whole year!" she babbled.

J finished shoving bills into a go-bag (the theatre's meager funds). "I dunno. Someone must've tipped off the chief." He gave the bag to her and took her shoulders. "Regroup somewhere safe. I'll join you if I can."

"James, I'm _not_ letting you—"

"The kids need you." J said in a forceful voice. "Now go, you don't have any time!"

Rhonda couldn't find the words to tell him how stupid he was being. She couldn't even look him in the eye. She just took the bag and walked out the door. J watched her go, eyes panning over the elevator doors as his second-in-command made for the stairwell. When she was gone, he did a double take. Were the elevator doors moving? Nah, that was impossible, there was no way—

Christ on a skateboard, the doors were _opening_.

J said some un-priestly swears under his breath before he got the situation. He caught a glimpse of a dirty kid's face in the dark and leapt into action. It only took a second to get the elevator doors open—the things were so old the mechanism was broken, he thought about duct-taping 'em shut last summer but was glad he didn't. Mr. J grabbed the first kid he could get to and pulled them away from the 4-story drop.

"What are y'all _doin_?!" was all he could think to say.

"Sump'n crazy." Anne said from his arms.

"I know _that_!" Mr. J quickly put her down and pulled the other kids up, as fast as they could be pulled. There were only four of them. Just four dusty, scared kids standing in his office. He didn't know how many others got away. At least those four were safe…

Dani—loyal Dani—looked awfully young and vulnerable when she asked, "What do we do, J?"

There was a ruckus outside, at the bottom of the stairwell. Mr. J dodged to the door and looked out. Rhonda hadn't been caught, it was just cops caught in a kid's homemade booby trap.

"You four get outta here. I'm gonna hold 'em off. Cause a distraction." The adult swept up some loose bills and handed them to Dani. It wasn't much, but it was all he could give to her. It might just save those kids' lives.

She numbly held the money and said about the same thing Rhonda did.

"J, you can't do this. It isn't worth it. J, you're—you're dark-skinned, they won't take it easy on you—"

"I'm not asking. Go up the service ladder, onto the roof. Use the fire escape. That's an order, Gypsy girl!"

"I won't let you! I _won't let you_!"

Mr. J was already stepping away. If Julie wasn't holding onto Dani, afraid to let her follow, Dani would've followed.

"Keep each other safe!" J called. Then he was gone.

Kat and Julie both had to drag the teen away. Anne ripped boxes away from the metal service ladder. Kat went first to fling open the hatch. The girls emerged into the windy, damp night. Dani was with them—heartbroken. Mr. J was just the last in a long string of losses she had no time to grieve.

The fire escape was a rusty, creaking structure. It seemed like any puff of wind would tear it away from the side of the building. It groaned under their sneakers. If any cops were in the alley underneath, they surely would've been caught. But all the cops seemed to be inside. The four girls escaped into Metro City—tired, scared, and with nowhere to go.


	4. Into the Lair

Into the Lair

They'd been walking for hours. It seemed like that, their feet certainly hurt that much. Even Dani's. And her nightly routine had her walking all over the city.

There was no other safehouse, no place to stay or kindly citizen to shelter them. No one dreamed the worst could happen. They were supposed to be _safe_! Dani's head was lost in that dark thought-cloud as they walked. The city at night had few landmarks, even for smart Julie. It hadn't taken them long to get lost. Somehow, they'd wandered into the dark industrial part of town. The girls sensed danger around every corner. And what was more, the sky was about to open up and pour buckets on them.

"We can't be too far from a safe place." Julie said, trying to keep up morale. "Dani—isn't there something nearby?"

"There should be an overpass up ahead." Dani answered.

"An overpass? Come on." Kat complained. She'd been carrying her sister for an hour, she didn't know how much more she could take. And sleeping under an overpass wasn't her idea of a good time.

"It's about to rain. Would you rather stay here?" Dani asked.

Kat, not catching the sarcasm, put her sister down and collapsed at the foot of a concrete pillar. The lot they'd stopped in was flanked by an abandoned power plant. The blonde girl sighed, "Sounds good. Wake me in the morning." and tried to go to sleep against the plant's outer wall. Anne looked sleepily around and collapsed by her sister.

If any of them looked close, they would've seen the graffiti on the brick to their right. It read, "Go away, nobody lives here".

"We can't sleep here. We have to keep going." Dani tried to convince the girls.

"Too late." Anne said. She was half asleep.

"Maybe we could just…rest for a minute…"

Julie slung her bag off her shoulder, and leaned on the wall. The red bricks to the right of Kat gave way under her shoulder. Before her tired brain could snap awake, she was swallowed up by darkness.

From the outside it looked like she vanished. All three girls saw it, but none could believe their tired eyes. Julie was just…gone! Her bag still sat on the asphalt. Julie had fallen _through_ the wall, making an un-graceful "oomph" noise when she landed. That sure woke everyone up.

"…Juuuulie?" Kat called.

The girl scrambled back out of the wall. Where she made contact with it, it fizzled and glowed bright blue. Dani caught the stumbling girl—all four of them stared in horror and fascination at where she'd just been.

"What…was that?" Dani asked.

"Julie, are you a witch?" Kat asked.

"I dunno, I… _am_ I a witch?" Julie asked herself.

"Awesome." Anne said.

Without a word, Dani set Julie on her feet, and cautiously approached the wall. Her outstretched fingers never met brick—they never met anything at all. The hologram warped a bit as her hand slid through it. A wall, made of nothing but light! It was the stuff of science fiction—in the middle of trashy nowhere!

Dani yanked her hand back. She was sure something on the other side would bite her. Kat wasted no time.

"Whoa…" she breathed. "We have to see what's in there!"

"We really don't." Dani said.

"Come on, we have to! It'll be dry in there!" Kat replied.

She picked up her bag, took her sister's hand, and stepped straight through.

"It's worth a look." Julie said. She picked up her bag and followed.

"This whole thing screams 'trap'…" Dani said. She was talking to dead air. One dramatic sigh later, Dani followed her girls.

Just on the other side was an alcove. They let their eyes adjust there. The double steel doors that led into the building were unlocked, and when they were opened, none of the four girls could believe their eyes.

The best way to describe it would be "American Chopper Wonderland". Vehicles, devices, stray parts and strange machinery were everywhere they looked. Cables snaked around their shoes. Foreboding shapes dangled over their heads. As hodge-podge as it all was, the effect was still scary…and awesome.

Only the sound of their breathing and their footsteps could be heard. With a muffled clap of thunder, the storm outside broke. The steady, mellow drumming of rain on the roof made haunting background noise. The girls looked at each other's faces—they'd made it inside before the rain. There was no going back. They pressed on, past the foyer.

The whole Lair seemed to be sleeping—nothing stirred. If anything had, it would've started a stampede. The space opened up into the huge turbine room. Still, the great metal creatures slumbered. The kids started to explore.

"What is this place?" Anne whispered.

"No idea." Julie answered. Their voices travelled around the cavernous space.

The girls had grown bold, and wandered farther away from each other. They'd totally forgotten about finding a place to sleep. Anne ran ahead to inspect an odd creature (a sleeping Brain Bot). Kat wandered upon an alcove full of hanging papers and fabric samples. Dani stood by the air-bike, wondering what such a machine could be, and Julie found a huge microscope-like machine in its own room. It was Julie that first spotted the lights.

"Hey, guys, I see something." she hissed to the others.

One by one, they joined up with her. In the distance—deep in the Lair—something was emitting a glow.

"I think someone's here." Dani said. Her years of experience were telling her to run.

"They would've heard us by now." Julie pointed out. "And we would've heard them."

She started off after the faint glow. It took them on a winding path through the maze-like Lair. Excitement mounted as they turned a corner to find—

A room, lit bright as day. There were no fluorescents, no machines or windows bathing the space in a white-gold glow. The light was coming from little cylinders. There were maybe three dozen—the size of glowsticks set in a wall of machinery. They were dazzling. Each one had a little space, like lightbulbs plugged in. They didn't make any noise. Or emit any heat. They just…glowed.


	5. Colors

Colors

Nobody asked the obvious question. This new discovery was too weird, too wonderful, it'd be shocking for anyone to know what was going on. For a moment they just stared.

"They're beautiful." Anne said, beginning to explore the room.

"What do you think they're made of?" Dani asked. The girls were wandering in a trance.

"Could be radioactive…could be glow in the dark…could be neon tubes…" Julie muttered. She really didn't know.

No one was watching her, Anne knew. She reached out her little hand and brushed one.

Her skin had barely made contact when it turned from off-white to a deep gold. Shades of the color seemed to swirl inside it. Anne took her hand away to see what would happen, and the cylinder's new color slowly started to fade.

"Whoa." she said.

"Annie, don't touch!" Kat scolded her sister.

"But it doesn't hurt! Look!" Anne reached in and grabbed the strange thing. It came out easy, and glowed vibrantly in her hand. It wasn't hard, but it wasn't pliable, either—to Anne, it felt like a little living thing.

Julie said, "No way." It wasn't hurting the girl at all, she was smiling at it in fact. Julie decided she should see for herself. She grabbed one high on the wall and watched as it turned scarlet. Not just blood red. Gryffindor red. It reacted to her touch! The little thing was heavier than she expected, and started sending little waves of hot and cold into her skin.

She excitedly showed hers to the other girls.

"We can use them as light!" Kat said, already grabbing one for herself. It bloomed a radiant, violent magenta. It was like magic! Kinda tickled, too…

"They're amazing…" Dani admitted. She carefully picked hers out of the multitude. It was in the middle, and when her hand closed around it, a wave of pure teal washed over it, like the background colors of the Romani flag. She couldn't help gaze in wonder.

"Mine's pretty." Anne gazed into her half-closed hand, ignoring the golden smoke seeping between her fingers.

Julie was hypnotized by the hot-cold sensation spreading up her arm. Dani watched the colors dance in her chip of light. Kat pulled Anne close in a sisterly way, marveling at what they'd found. The smell of something burning drifted through the air. No one noticed, no one cared.

The light spread over Dani's palm. She thought it was melting. She broke from her stupor long enough to see the teal had run down her wrist. It had bled through her fingers. She tried to shake it off but it defied all gravity. Clawing at her wrist didn't stop it, either. That's when she discovered the stuff wasn't just on her skin—it was _running through her veins_.

Dani started to hyperventilate. The others were worse off. Kat was screaming her sister's name. Anne stayed rigid, gold smoke rolling off her skin and hair, pouring out of her lungs with every breath. Violet lines had crawled up Kat's cheeks. Julie was clutching a control panel—little wisps of red coming out of her mouth and fogging her glasses. She was trying to walk to the others. Dani took a stumbling step towards them, too.

Inside her skin, a storm was raging. The chemical reaction hit her lungs, then her heart, then her brain. That hot-cold-hot-cold pulse grew, intensified until it was all she could feel. She was drowning in it. Pandora's box had been opened.

Every muscle went rigid, and her vision faded to three other colors in the fog. There were gold, scarlet, and magenta lights in the blurry room. Teal light burned behind her eyes and cut beams through the smoke before her. Then it all went black, and she fell.

It's impossible to say how long they spent like that. When they woke—slowly, like from a dream—they were all sprawled around the floor. Anne blinked her eyes in the strange light. There was no sign of the glowsticks they'd been holding. Four sockets stood empty in the wall—odd dark spots in the symmetrical pattern. Little Anne's body didn't _hurt_ , exactly, but she still felt that weird electricity zinging around her bones as she sat up. Her sister was still groggy—like how she'd get on Saturday mornings. Anne shook her, and she groaned.

"What _happened_?" Shadowkat asked. A little bit of magenta curled out from between her lips.

Julie was the next to sit up, still tasting something ozone-y. She rubbed her eyes behind her glasses. She felt like she'd just drank a redbull and jumped down an elevator shaft (again).

"Deej, go 'way…" Dani muttered in her sleep.

Julie crawled to her and brushed a black curl away from her face. Dani opened her eyes. The last vestiges of teal behind her pupils faded away. Reality came back to the 14-year-old, and it sent her heart speeding. They were still in danger. Those lights had poisoned them and they were in danger!

"Everyone alive?" Julie asked the room. A small chorus of bewildered "yes"es went up. The others were alive, okay, that was good…that was good. But still.

 _Bowg._

"What was that?" Julie whispered.

 _Bowg, bowg._

There it was again (and again). Julie triangulated it in a second. It came from above.

 _Bowg bowg bowg bowg…_

A whole bunch of other voices joined in the chorus. One had turned into dozens, and the sound sent ice through the girls' veins. One by one, they caught sight of the blue lights hovering in the dark. Robot eyes fixed on them. Red robot eyes, backed by an eerie blue glow. The sight was something out of a nightmare.

"I think we should run…" Julie whispered.

The eyes focused on her. They'd heard. And then they spotted her.

 _Intruder!_ One said.

No one knew what happened first—Dani yelling "GO!" or all four girls taking off. They ran in different directions. Everything was chaos again.

Kat had a death grip on her sister's hand. Little Anne's legs could barely keep up. Dozens—no, hundreds, it seemed—of the scary robots were after them. From the heart of the Lair they'd run past turbines and big machines of all kinds. Kat kept them on a winding path, trying desperately to lose the machines in the chaotic place. They were gaining on the girls, when—

The lights came on. That stunned both the Brain Bots and the girls. But the girls recovered quicker (way too quick) and took off again.

Kat vaulted a bundle of cables. Her little sister somehow cleared them in one bound. Adrenaline shot through the two girls' veins. Kat's judgement was clouded—she was just running scared. She didn't see the wall coming.

Until it was too late.

 _Intruder_ , the Brain Bots were yelling. Kat looked back at them. They were gaining again—metal jaws open to grab the girls. Kat looked forward again. A brick wall came out of nowhere.

She only had time to throw an arm across her face.

Her eyes closed.

She braced for impact.

It never came.

Her next step landed, but her leg had never hit the wall. Anne was gone from her grip. She skidded to a stop and turned around. It could've been another fake wall—but when she reached back and touched it, it was solid. Anne hadn't come through with her. Neither had the robots. Kat had gone _through_ the wall.

On the other side, cornered and without her sister, Anne turned to face the cloud of robots. They were all just floating there. Two of them looked at each other. The girl they were trying to catch had pulled off some sort of magic trick. They knew what was going on about as much as Anne did.

They all looked at the little girl. She was the only one around to catch.

 _Intruder!_

She gave them her best innocent smile, and ran.

Julie had taken a path through the side-tunnels and storage rooms. Her heart was pounding so hard, she could hear it. The swarm that followed her was fast approaching. She could hear them too. They were so close! She skidded into a long hallway and locked eyes on a door at the end. There! She'd hide in there!

There was a sign on the door. Julie's eyes had locked onto the words before she even knew what was happening.

"Hibernating Laser Bears—Do Not Wake" it said. The door was hundreds of feet away—but Julie could still read the sign, plain as if it were two feet in front of her. How was she doing that? How could she make it stop?

She couldn't see what was in front of her!

Her shoulder hit something hard—the wall! Her vision was fixed on the end of the hall, she'd veered off course. The shock got her vision back a bit. She caught a glimpse of her feet and the hall in front of her, at least. That was something.

 _Intruder intruder intruder intruder…_

Brain Bots poured into the hallway. They were _deafening_! Julie sprinted for the bear door. She knew not to hide in there, but she still had a use for it.

She'd almost reached the end of the hallway when something tugged at her elbow. A Brain Bot reached out and snagged her sleeve with a claw. Julie put on one last burst of speed.

She slammed into the door, wrenched it open, and pulled it between her and the Bots.

Dozens poured inside. They didn't have the banking speed (or, ironically, the brains) to avoid the trap. Julie heard a few surprised roars from inside. When all the Brain Bots that were gonna go in were in, Julie slammed the door, and took off the way she came.

Dani wasn't so lucky. She didn't remember the way they came in. Landmarks disappeared when the lights came up, and she found herself in a desperate, panicked run.

She ducked under machinery and climbed over a mountain of a robot. Those techniques all worked on cops. She'd outrun cops, thugs, and even an angry raccoon once. Those things were nothing like the machines chasing her. She could hear their ever-present yelling, right behind her.

 _Intruder intruder intruder intruder…_

They wouldn't shut up with that.

Surely, they were alerting whoever lived there. The owners were up. Someone had turned on the house lights. That scared Dani—the robots would only eat her.

She jumped a stray ray-gun stand and turned a corner. She'd almost lost them!

Wait—she was back in the glowstick room! Dani's sneakers skidded on the concrete floor. Someone was _there_. Two someones—a smallish someone with…was that an afro? And a big, hulking someone.

"I swear, Sir, I moved the doormat—" Dani heard. The big one was gesturing.

Dani turned to scramble the other way, but the someones had caught a glimpse of her. Adult voices filled the air.

She ran away from the glowstick room without a second glance. The Brain Bots had spotted their master, and they stopped dead in the air, waiting for orders. Dani barely heard someone ordering the Brain Bots to follow her. It seemed the dumb machines had lost her.

If Dani had a moment to breathe, she'd have noticed the ease with which she was running. She was looking back at the robots and sensing obstacles in her path at the same time. It seemed like she felt out every move before it happened. Dani never noticed. She heard the voices of the power plant's owners commanding her to stop, and she just ran faster.

Her eyes caught sight of a familiar shape. An exit sign! She'd never been so happy to see a sign—her sneakers carried her towards it before she had time to think.

The door burst open when she threw her weight into it. As soon as her brain registered she was falling, she wasn't. Her leading foot hit a hard surface and she came to a stop on it. Her hands were splayed in front of her to catch her, and she looked down through her fingers.

She was standing on nothing, stories above a pit full of alligators.

(Disco gators.)

The sleepy reptiles gazed up at her in wonder. A human was levitating over their pen.

She gaped down, horrified, and stumbled back. Her calves hit something. The bottom of the doorway.

Dani had fallen maybe two feet. Whatever she was standing on was completely clear—no reflection or anything. It was like that Indiana Jones movie with the Holy Grail and the invisible bridge over the never-ending chasm. She didn't want to chance her faith in God running out. Dani scrambled out of the alligator pit and kept running, neglecting the door.

 _Intruder intruder intruder intruder…_

The Brain Bots had found her again.

Across the building, they'd found Kat again, too. She'd lost them a few times by repeating her earlier trick. If she got a running start, and closed her eyes, she'd phase through walls like they were water. God, she didn't know how she was doing it, but it was her saving grace.

She ran through a door and found a stairwell. Good. Her sister's cries, the thing she'd been following, were coming from somewhere high. Kat panted as she sprinted up. The yelling robots burst into the stairwell just as Kat was leaving.

The stairs let out into a steel hallway—uh-oh.

There were Brain Bots at the end of it. They flew at her. Bots flew out of the stairwell too—Kat was trapped. No running start. Nowhere to go.

She closed her eyes, and fell through the floor.

In the big open space, five stories up and clinging to a metal rafter, Anne was screaming her head off. Brain Bots surrounded her, but didn't touch her. She wouldn't let them. Their little metal faces were as concerned as can be. Anne could fall at any second, but when they got close, she just screamed more!

Anne didn't know how she got up there. One second she was running, the next she was light as a feather and up in the air! Was she a witch? She didn't know—but she sure as heck wasn't moving from that spot. No sir.

Her screaming had drawn the power plant's two inhabitants. They stood below her, arguing about what to do. They had a plan for everything…except strange little kids stuck to their ceiling. No one could plan for that.

In a storage closet across the building, Julie had her hands clamped over her ears. She could hear the blood in her veins, the robots searching for her, the lights humming all over the building…everything! It was overwhelming! She tried to even her breathing. Julie could figure a way out of there, if she could just think…

Was somebody screaming?

Yes! It was Anne!

Julie listened closely. Anne was somewhere high, surrounded by muttering robots. Two familiar voices were arguing about how to get the blonde girl down from wherever she was stuck. Julie, Julie had definitely heard those voices before…on TV, if she remembered right. Yeah, she remembered those voices! The girls couldn't have wandered into THE Evil Lair, could they? The secret hideout of the Defender of Metro City? That would explain all the spikes…

Julie looked left, to a spare box of batteries. When she focused her vision she saw the logo printed on it. Almost everything in the Lair had his logo on it, how had she _missed_ that? She heard Kat's voice. The other girl was in running distance. Julie pulled herself together and burst from her hiding place. She had to tell Kat they weren't in any danger! And they had to get Anne!

Dani just barely avoided the sharp, metal teeth. For her, running was still life-or-death. She was making a straight shot for the exit—the REAL exit—with a cloud of Brain Bots close enough to bite at her heels.

 _Intruder intruder intruder intruder…_

"HELP!"

A little voice cut through the babble. Ice ran through Dani's veins. The other girls, they hadn't gotten out! They were in trouble! There were dozens of robots on her tail, but Dani had to do something.

A claw clamped down on the back of her sneaker. Dani gasped. She tried to turn around and twist her shoe out of the thing's grip. Then, something insane happened.

A wave of power rippled through the girl, feeling like a small nuclear explosion. She _felt_ the wave move past her body—into the air outside. The effect was like the shockwave from a Mythbusters explosion. Brain Bots flew back, carried by the energy from a spherical blast. Lights up and down the hallway blew out. Dani's eyes fluttered open again, and she gazed in wonder at the results of the blast.

She didn't have time to figure out how it happened. The Rroma girl hopped over dazed Brain Bots and took off.

Anne was still hanging on when Kat and Julie arrived on the scene. Brain Bots escorted them there. Two dragged up chairs for the girls (the Bots had been through enough kidnappings, they knew their manners). Kat and Julie gaped up at Anne.

The two aliens barely had time to notice the girls when Dani was dragged onto the scene. The Brain Bots holding the struggling girl stood her up, and she finally recognized whose Lair she was in, who was standing in his pajamas before her.

Megamind.


	6. Safety (at Last)

Safety (At Last)

As surprised as Dani was to see them, Megamind and Minion were even more surprised to see the girls. The blue alien looked over their faces. Four. There were just _four_ of them in all. They looked dirty, tired, and scared. Definitely not like the organized crime team he'd expected when the alarm woke him up.

"That appears to be everyone, Sir." Minion told him as the three girls were put in chairs.

" _Almost_ everyone." Megamind was looking at the one still stuck in the rafters. When he addressed the three thieves, he tried to seem strict and in control. "Stay there—I'll deal with you in a moment!" (Dani was glaring, but he didn't notice.)

The Incredibly Handsome Heroic Genius and Defender of All Metrocity walked to a spot right under Anne.

"Brain Bots? Up!" he commanded. The little robots _bowg_ ed among themselves and lifted up their master by his pajamas, forming a spiky floor under his slippers for good measure. He would've looked impressive…if he wasn't in fleece.

Megamind rose up to Anne's height with his arms crossed and his collar flared. The kid in the rafters (oh dear—she was such a little thing) stared at him in wonder.

"Would you like to come down now?" he asked.

The girl just nodded.

"Then let the Brain Bots help! They don't bi—well, Spikeless over here bites, but most of them don't."

Anne almost giggled. The robots inched closer, and she didn't scream. A miracle! One of them closed a claw gently around her sneaker. Another grabbed her arm. And another, the back of her little jacket. No screaming. When she was safely in their grip, she slid herself off the rafter, and the 'Bots guided her to the ground. They had their work cut out for them. She was light as air.

Megamind stepped onto solid ground. (Spikeless was gnawing on his pajama-cape, easily waved away.) He didn't have to tell the last girl to have a seat, she was received by the other blonde. Were they sisters? Megamind glanced at Minion, who seemed to be thinking the same thing. The fish-gorilla-robot shrugged. The girls' relation didn't matter, _what they were doing_ and _how they got in_ mattered! They'd taken Metro Man's power and tried to flee! They didn't look like master thieves or rival villains—but one mustn't judge a book by its cover.

"You ladies broke into the wrong Lair." Minion started.

"I'll say." The Rroma girl said back.

"I hope you have a good explanation ready!" Megamind went into his best intimidating-showman routine (a relic from his evil days, and a thing he still used on criminals). "Because I want to know who you are, who sent you, and exactly which powers you took! It was a bold move, I'll admit…sneaking into my hideout in the dead of night to steal Metro Man's _awesome power_! Obviously, my experiments weren't as secret as I thought! I'll have to be more careful in the future…we almost didn't catch you…"

"What…sorry, powers? Stealing?" Julie interrupted. "We didn't mean to steal anything, what are you talking about?"

"The power fragments! Minion, show them!"

Minion quickly pulled up the security footage on the wall of monitors to their right. The girls watched themselves take glowing cylinders from the display. Minion and Megamind knew the girls had removed power fragments (warnings popped up all over the Lair the moment it happened). But they hadn't reviewed the footage yet. When the girls started picking up power fragments with their _bare hands_ , Megamind and Minion looked at each other, shocked. (The girls infused themselves—well, that explained some of the weird happenings of the last few minutes.) And…it was hard to see on the old screens, but the fragments _changed color_. Megamind's brain was reeling. What kind of scientific phenomena was THAT? He turned back to the girls—they could provide more data, but they were criminals, they wouldn't…

They were watching the screen with a mix of horror and intrigue. The older blonde held the younger close. As the on-screen versions of themselves succumbed to the DNA fusion, the little one asked, "What happened to us?"

They weren't criminals. They were kids. Scared, dirty, and traumatized kids.

"Should I…get the defusion gun, Sir?" Minion asked.

"I don't think so. A word, Minion?"

The loyal fish glanced at the girls (Brain Bots could hold them for a while) and stepped to the side with Megamind.

"It would be quite the shock, Minion, we should wait." Megs stage-whispered.

"I'd like to, Sir, but…well, you know what happened with Tighten…"

"I know, I know."

"We don't know them at all."

"We don't know what powers they have, either. The smart thing to do is to defuse them and…send them on their way. _If_ they simply stumbled into this mess…"

Kat spoke up. "You're not that far away, we can hear you!"

They ignored her.

"You get a vote here. 50-50, like I said—what do you propose we do?" Megamind asked.

Minion would probably always be flattered by that. "Well, Sir, I propose we find out what they know first. Then we defuse them and send them on their way. Their parents should be missing them—"

"We don't have any…parents…" Julie said.

"…Grandparents? Guardians? Pets?" Minion asked.

Julie just shook her head.

"We came in here to get out of the rain, we didn't mean to break in. We've got nowhere else to go." She said.

The one beside her—the oldest, all wild black hair—strained against her Brain Bot captors and hissed at Julie. "Don't tell them anything!" To Megamind and Minion, she held out her hands and insisted, "Whatever you did to us—undo it!"

"No, Dani, wait!" Julie pleaded with the aliens. "We've been homeless for months. We were living in an abandoned theatre, over on Magnolia Street, but the police raided it and we had to leave. None of us are criminals or anything—honest! We just can't go back where we came from, and we didn't want to sleep in an alley…"

Megamind and Minion looked at each other. They both could hear the rain pounding the roof. How could they possibly throw the girls out?

"Brain Bots? Chair me." Megamind commanded.

The 'Bots rolled a computer chair his way (nearly crashing it into him). He took a seat in front of the kids and waved their Brain Bot captors away.

"Is this true?" he asked them.

The girls nodded. The oldest bit her lip and looked away—she was holding in some great emotion, some great pain. They sure were skinny and dirty enough for their story to be plausible…They truly looked like kids who'd just lost their home.

"We didn't mean to steal your powers, neither." Anne said.

"If—if I can ask…what _did_ we steal? What are power fragments?" Julie asked.

"Yeah, we don't have Metro Man abs." Anne added.

(Kat snuck a look under her shirt. Just to make sure.)

"I'm glad you asked! You see, out of _scientific curiosity_ , we sought to unlock the secrets dormant in Metro Man's DNA. ALL of the secrets—dominant, co-dominant, and recessive genes! By separating the alleles that gave Metro Man his powers, we could activate DNA sequences that lay dormant in him. Theoretically, we could infuse humans with powers Metro Man's ancestors—or even female relatives—possessed!"

There was a moment of silence.

"I got a fifth-grade education, my dude." Dani said.

"We managed to split up the powers in Metro Man's DNA." Minion translated. "Each of you should have one, or even two or three, of his powers."

"One or two or three?" Julie asked. "You don't sound so sure..."

"Er…long story short, we don't know _which_ DNA sequences do _what_. We haven't commenced testing yet. We didn't even know how to test them without human volunteers!"

An idea hit Megamind. A brilliant, clever, out-there idea. He stood up—sending the rolley chair zooming away.

"Minion! I propose another option!" He started pacing in front of the girls. "We offer them a sort of _internship_! We'll give you room and board, girls—"

"You'll give us a home?!" Kat yelled. Anne was floating again.

"Here! Or City Hall, if you prefer." Megamind agreed. "You'll need guidance…We won't have another Tighten."

"Of course not!" Julie cried.

"Minion and I will monitor the growth of your powers. You'll provide us with scientific data—"

"Nothing too touch. Maybe just some questions, and some displays of what you can do." Minion said.

"Of course, of course—who knows what secrets we can uncover?"

"I'm never touching the ground again!" Anne yelled.

"Good! That's the spirit!" Megamind wrapped up the little monologue. "The choice is yours. If anyone wants to back out, it's no harm done."

"How long is this internship?" Kat asked, hopeful.

Minion and Megamind honestly hadn't thought of that.

"We'll play it by ear?" Minion offered.

"That's it! We'll figure it out later. So, what do you say?"

The girls looked around at each other's smiling faces. They'd gone from homeless and destitute to being offered sanctuary b the Defender of Metro City. Julie was grinning, ecstatic about this. Kat was thinking about home. They were going to have a home! Anne, she was floating off her chair, laughing—she was discovering she liked what she could do. And Dani, when the girls looked at her for an answer, she gave them a soft smile and an approving nod.

"We're in!" Julie said.

"Excellent!" Megamind shouted.

"I'll make up the guest room." Minion took his leave, accompanied by Brain Bots.

"Now, since you will all be acting as my human guinea pigs, and I don't have the time or the patience to learn your names…you will henceforth be known as…Guinea Pig 1."

"I'm Anne." Guinea Pig 1 said.

"Good for you. You will be Guinea Pig 2." Megamind told Kat. (Evil habits die hard.)

"I'm Kat. Sometimes Shadowkat."

"Apparently. You, you will be Guinea Pig 3."

"No." Dani said.

"And lastly, you will be…Guinea Pig Alpha, as you look like the smartest."

"Thank you." Julie said. She knew it was the glasses.

"You're welcome."

Minion made a reappearance, arms full of blankets. "Sir? It's very late, we can sort through the details in the morning."

"Right! To bed!" Megamind commanded. He commanded a lot.

Brain Bots gathered up the girls' bags (Dani kept hers on her back—closely guarded). All six people marched to the part of the Lair that housed living quarters. Lights turned off behind them. All the while, the theatre troupe chatted among themselves, explaining their new powers and how they discovered them. They found the guest room—like everything in the Lair—was done in Megamind fashion. Namely, in blacks, blues, and with spikes. The room was rather spare. It was obvious the two aliens didn't have many guests over. Still, there was enough space on the two beds for all four girls. It was secure. It was out of the rain. So it was the best all four girls had had in months.

Minion had to fuss about the room first, of course. He made sure the lightning-bolt bedspreads were straight. His fussing was only stopped when Anne crawled under his arms and fell asleep on top of the covers. The little girl just had the longest day of her life. Exhaustion was falling fast on them. Dani took their bags and put them along a wall. Half of the girls were already asleep and Megamind and Minion were still talking. Dani gently shooed them out (Minion was still explaining where the showers were).

"Thanks for taking it easy on us." Dani said through the half-closed door. "We'll start work in the morning. We can't do much, but we can clean up around here—maybe get some income outside—"

"Work?" Minion asked.

"No, no, you'll earn your keep with the data you give us!" Megamind said. Dani seemed surprised. This didn't fit in with how the world worked…

Her face was unreadable as the Rroma girl said, "Sure. We'll figure the details out tomorrow. Thanks again…for doing right by them."

Kind of embarrassed, Dani shut the door. The other girls (her girls) were all spread out on the beds. How were they asleep already? A spot by Julie was open. Cautiously, Dani laid down and tried to sleep. How long had it been since she had a mattress that wasn't ancient and moth-eaten? Too long. (She'd never had a bed with a spiked headboard, that was a new one.) She let the stress ease out of her bones while she waited for Minion and Megamind to go to bed.

Her body was still on a nocturnal schedule. In the pre-dawn hours, she got up, took her bag, and headed to the showers. (Where did they even get Megamind-themed conditioner? He didn't even have hair.) It had been forever since she'd had a proper shower. For people who were technically homeless, Minion and Megs had themselves a pretty good setup. The best her and the other homeless theatre kids could do was swimming in the plaza reflection pool in summer. She wished DJ, and Mattie, and Tony could've been with them when they escaped the theatre…those boys were Megamind fans, they'd love all the merchandise.

After her shower, Dani made her way through the dark—back to the glowstick room. There was a gun hanging on a wall. It had a "defuse" setting, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out how to work it. Oh well. She left it be. Megamind owed her, anyway.

The kitchen was located under the living quarters. Dani had to be quiet. It was just as odd as the rest of the place. Was that an improvised microwave? Who needs a fridge with spikes on it?! Dani was baffled. She was always kind of curious what aliens ate—she opened a cabinet and got her answer. Cup Noodles. That would do. She swept a bunch into her bag, and went about raiding the rest of the kitchen.

When she'd taken all she dared take, she left a note with her apologies, and took off into the drizzly morning. She wouldn't be coming back.


	7. Victor

Victor

It was hard to say how long Dani had been standing in the street. Her fingernails had dug into the wood of the sawhorse blockade. Rain came down and people passed by her like she was invisible, as she stared at the remains of the theatre.

It had been razed almost to the ground. All that was left was a pile of twisted rubble in a lot. A crane stood over it, victorious, like some proud champion. Dani could see bits of the theatre's old color poking out from between the rubble. Here a tattered blanket. There a bit of second-floor-hallway carpeting. She could almost make out the heart-shaped stain from where Dante spilled Regan's soda. Maybe that was just rainwater. Or maybe her vision was just blurry…

"Gypsy! There you are!" a familiar voice called.

Thinking she was caught, Dani jumped, and almost bolted. She whirled around and saw who called her.

"Victor." she said.

The older boy walked up to the sawhorse beside her. God, he looked rough. The streets weren't kind—even in Metro City. He was wearing battered Salvation Army clothes and looked like he hadn't had a good meal since leaving the theatre. He looked as rough as she felt. Dani expected him to attack her or something. They didn't exactly part on good terms. But Victor just stood looking out at the debris. Street rules—when people looked as tired and worn as they both did, they weren't gonna be any trouble.

"…What happened here, Vic?" Dani asked after a long silence.

"Last I heard, cops followed your new chicks back to the hideout. Cleared everyone out just to tear it down. They thought it'd be safer for us, with the theatre gone."

Safer. Sleeping in alleyways, curled up behind sidewalk spikes, or in some stranger's crazy foster home would be _safer_ …safer than the beautiful theatre they worked so hard to keep. Dani started to laugh, but caught herself. If she started, it would've turned into sobbing…and she wouldn't have been able to stop.

Victor gave her a second to digest it all. Then he dropped the bomb. "J's been arrested."

Those words hit Dani like a knife to the chest.

"They're pinning him with trespassing, bribery, and using kids to make money."

"Bet your Eddie's real happy about that." Dani said, bitter.

"Don't know—I haven't seen him in a few days."

Dani watched his face. He seemed sincere. That might explain why he was being so polite. He hadn't tried to get close to her, touch her, or even smell her hair. He wasn't so tough without Eddie backing him up. In her shocked state, Dani was just happy for the little miracles.

"He still in the city?" she asked.

"Don't think so. He said something about a job in New York."

"Then what are you doing out here, Vic?"

"Same as you—looking for other theatre kids. I found a safehouse past the wharf district. A bunch of kids ended up there. You should grab your troublemakers and come back with me…unless you got somewhere else to be."

Dani thought about this for just a second. She turned away from the old theatre and told Victor, "They aren't coming. They found a better place to live."

"Sorry 'bout that, Gypsy. Come on—I'll show you where it is."

"Don't call me Gypsy." The girl commanded. For the first time, Victor listened.

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, the emotional turmoil, or just because Victor was a familiar face—when he asked what she'd been through…she told him. She told him about wandering into the Evil Lair— _the_ Evil Lair—and finding a bunch of weird lights. (She didn't tell him about the powers—she only half believed in them herself.) Victor only interrupted the story once or twice. Her voice shook the slightest bit when she described how the other girls opted to stay with Megamind, and she left them.

"They weren't on these streets when he killed Metro Man." Victor offered.

"Yeah. I forgot…how long were you at the theatre, Vic?"

"Three years." Was his simple reply. Dani wasn't the only one that lost the theatre. She was silent for a while.

"Hey, now you're here, it can be just like the old days!"

"What old days?" Dani asked the boy. They weren't exactly BFFs back in the old days, Vic was too attached to Eddie. There was a rumor that Victor liked her. There was also a rumor that he kept hair samples under his bedroll. (He was the guy who gave people haircuts.) Dani could believe both those rumors—and she avoided him. If Roxanne Ritchi taught her anything, it was avoid straight guys.

"You remember, when a bunch of us got together to BnE some places? It was the most fun I ever had in that hellhole! We got more cash in one night than we got in three months of peddling street tricks. I swear, you had the best eye for places. You were like our navigator when you ran with us. We'll do that again…minus Eddie, of course."

Dani winced at the memory. "That was a long time ago, Vic. The theatre was in trouble. Kids were starving."

"We're in trouble now."

"…I guess we are."

Victor looked around. They were getting close. His job had been easy—Dani was in a daze—but maybe they could just…

"Wait, Gypsy. The day's still young, we can catch lunch at the soup kitchen."

"That's across town." She gave him a suspicious look, sighed, and kept walking. "We're close to the warehouses, let's go."

"Suit yourself." Victor said.

They were entering a sketchy part of town. Dani grew more wary with every step. It was rumored criminals were all over the area. Theatre kids wouldn't enter there unless they were truly desperate. Soon enough, Victor steered Dani to a warehouse away from prying eyes. He stayed behind her as they waked into the building. It was a huge, abandoned mausoleum of a place. The airplane-hangar doors sat just a few feet ajar. Inside was only darkness.

Dani turned around to ask, "You sure this place is safe?" but Victor had disappeared. Before her eyes, the doors slammed shut. The sound of a lock being engaged rang through the dark.

What was going on? Dani stumbled away from the doors. The floor was uneven—she steadied herself with some unseen power, some sixth sense. Her hearing sharpened before her eyes adjusted. Above her own heavy breathing she heard feet shuffling, voices snickering, and a lot of people in a big space.

"Oh, Dani-boy…" someone called.

That voice! It broke down all her mental walls, making her forget everything she knew about survival. It reduced her to a small child cowering in front of a nightmare monster.

Eddie had found her.

Some instinct in her new DNA made her cast out in front of her with her power. She sensed shifting bodies on a hill made of boxes. In fact, she was surrounded. Voices laughed at her stunned expression.

The abandoned warehouse was stacked high with crates—that was the hill everyone was standing around. Dani's eyes had adjusted. She recognized Eddie's crew from the theatre, but there were some lowlifes she didn't recognize. They had—oh God, some of them were armed with crowbars or bits of wood. And standing at the highest point, grinning down at her like a demented judge in a violent court, was Eddie, the Jag.

"Where ya been, Dani-boy? Where's your friends?" he asked casually, stepping down the hill towards her.

She was silent. Frozen. He looked as bad as Victor—probably worse. He'd been through some fights in the past week. Won some of them, judging by his skinned knuckles. Eddie was watching her like a dingo watches a human baby, honestly.

"Ah, I'll find them eventually. You'll do for now."

"You won't touch them." Dani said (not very bravely). Scattered laughter rang through the warehouse.

"Won't I? And what will you have to say about it?" Eddie was on the ground with Dani, reinforcements surrounding them. Dani's voice deserted her.

Eddie was circling her. She didn't dare move to watch him (that unexplainable 6th sense tracked him when he was out of visual range.)

"Nothing, you got nothing to say. Good. I got a few things to say to you."

Dani really didn't want to hear them.

"I should thank you, first of all—without you and your bratty new girls, I never would've found my new crew here! They're a lot more open-minded than you theatre lot. I would go on for weeks about what I've been through since you snitched on me, but…what you're about to go through is gonna be worse. I'm gonna enjoy this, Gypsy…" Someone handed Eddie a bat. "Boys? Hold her."

Teenagers closed in on her, Eddie raised the bat, and Dani decided she really, REALLY didn't want to be there anymore. A strange sort of fight-or-flight reflex rose up in her. She felt the closest boy approach her from behind. Dani turned, raised her hands, and pushed the boy twelve feet.

She never laid a finger on him. From outside, it looked like he just flew away. Dani's forcefields felt like a part of her—an extension of her consciousness in the outside world. When the next teen reached for her, she just turned and thrust her fist out at him. She hit him with a fist-sized burst of energy. He went own, gasping and clutching his chest.

The dark worked against them. The boys didn't know what was happening. In a brilliant moment of mob mentality, they all rushed their prey at once. Dani dropped to one knee and discovered how to make that nuclear explosion happen again.

That time it was deliberate. It was almost deafening, too. It threw thugs back dozens of feet, and decimated nearby stacks of crates. When Dani stood up, she had to look over the damage she'd done, exhilarated. She'd done that. That power was in her blood! Boys started to stir—she had to leave. The Rroma girl secured her backpack and turned to the padlocked doors.

The scream of metal filled the warehouse. Dani didn't bother with the lock. She made her own exit. Daylight (grey and wet but beautiful) streamed in. Dani ran for it.

She wove through the warehouse district, sure she was being followed. If only she could fly like Anne! As it was, she was confined to fleeing wildly, sneakers pounding on cracked cement.

Left, right, then left again. It looked like she was going to out run her pursuers, when she dodged into an alley and ran into a chain-link fence. It was eight feet high and jagged at the top.

She turned around to find Eddie standing at the alleyway's entrance. His huge frame blocked her escape. He raised his weapon and taunted, "Nowhere to run, Gypsy!"

Ohh, she wasn't going to stand for that.

Dani dropped back into a stance. She was standing her ground. She reached forward with her power, found the bat in 3-D space, grabbed it, and ripped it from his hands. Dani threw it far away.

"I told you, YOU DON'T GET TO CALL ME THAT!" she roared.

Confusion and fear crossed Eddie's face for a second—just a split second. He wasn't figuring out he was beaten. Instead he closed the gap between them in a few seconds. His fists met an invisible wall just a few inches from the girl's shocked face. He pulled back one fist to attack again and something hit him in the chest. She dodged his next punch and he tried to grab her black hair. Somehow, she shoved him back a whole five feet, and when he went for her next, he reached for her throat.

A wave of white-hot pain hit his chest.

Dani didn't mean to do it, really. She just reacted. Before she knew what she was doing, she'd drawn her hand in a diagonal line, like she was throwing a blade. The forcefield that resulted wasn't a blunt shape. It cut through his Salvation Army jacket and his shirt.

Eddie stumbled back a few steps with his hands pressed to the source of the pain. He saw the damage and focused Dani with a glare. He lunged again.

She did the same thing, catching him across the face that time. He reacted like he'd been slapped. It took him a second more to recover—then he lunged for Dani again.

She wanted the fight to be over. She wanted Eddie to just crawl back to his friends already. So her next move was to put all her remaining strength into one wall of forcefield that threw him 20 feet into the street behind him.

He didn't get up right away. Dani nodded at him—a 'that's right, stay down!' gesture—and turned her attention to the fence. If she could just get a forcefield around herself, and lift it—gently! Gently! She could lift herself over the barrier. Clumsily, she managed it. As soon as her sneakers hit the pavement, she was running again.

She didn't get very far. A white news van shrieked to a stop just outside the alley, blocking her way. A young woman threw open the passenger-side door and shouted for Dani to get in.

The Rroma girl recognized her—and figured going with her was better than being hunted by Eddie's gang. She jumped in, and the van sped off.

Minutes later, Eddie stumbled back to the warehouse, breathing hard and holding his wounds. His mind was spinning. That little Giptyan was half his size, and a girl. How did she do that? She must've had a weapon on her—

Eddie stopped across the lot from his hideout. Dazed boys were crawling 'round the place, looking at the damage. Those that could walk, that is. A 15-foot-tall hole had been ripped into the doors. The metal was crumpled around the edges, pushed outward. Eddie looked at the doors…and turned to gaze in the direction Gypsy disappeared.


	8. Pacific Shogun 247 Sushi

Pacific Shogun 24/7 Sushi

The news van sped away from the bad part of town, Dani clutching her bag in the passenger seat. She hadn't said a word. So the driver broke the ice.

"I'm Roxanne, I'm a friend of Megamind's." she said.

"I know who you are, you're kind of a celebrity." Dani said. Most of the city's homeless population knew her. And if she and Megamind were just friends, then Dani was Metro Man.

The teen's social skills aside, Roxanne continued. "You must be Danielle. Dani. Megamind found your note just after you left. Everyone's out looking for you."

"I didn't want—I didn't mean to scare anyone." Dani insisted. "But I don't want to go back."

This surprised Roxanne. "Why not?"

"It's a long story."

"I'm a good listener."

The girl stayed quiet, looking out the window at the passing city.

Roxanne sighed…but dropped it. He pulled out her phone at the next red-light and speed-dialed her boyfriend.

"Hey! Megamind, I found her." Dani heard the reporter say. "Out by the docks, of all places…Yeah, she's in the van."

Dani was sure the reporter was going to turn her in. Like, _rule number 1_ for street kids was "don't get in anybody's car". Dani suddenly felt real stupid for breaking that rule.

"We're gonna be out for a little while. Girl time…no, Minion isn't invited to this one. See you back at the Lair." Roxanne hung up and re-pocketed the phone.

Dani stared at her in confusion. The reporter just brightly asked her, "You like sushi?"

Dani said yes. She had no idea what sushi was.

Sushi, she discovered fifteen minutes later, was fish. Uncooked fish. Dani poked at hers with a chopstick and wondered if that was why Minion couldn't come to girl time.

They'd taken a corner table in one of Roxanne's favorite places, a little undiscovered gem called Pacific Shogun 24/7 Sushi. Dani told her before they went in that she didn't have any money (she had some, but had to make it last as long as possible). Roxanne said not to worry—the reporter would be paying. She said it with such a casual tone, Dani just went with it. Roxanne was insistent enough on feeding the homeless girl, she probably would've fought Dani on the paying thing. That reporter could be a firecracker of a woman. Dani was sure she and Megamind were a good couple.

"It was more like a hotel, or a…what do you call it? An embassy. I went to an arts and culture fair once, it was like that too." Dani said. She didn't feel too bad talking about the theatre to a gadje, an outsider…since it was gone forever.

"You were, like, way out there. It wasn't in the warehouse district, was it?" Roxanne asked through a mouthful of sushi.

"No." Dani hoped her tone would imply she didn't want to talk about the warehouse district. Roxanne was picking up the whole fish-rice-circle, dipping it in soy sauce, and eating it in one bite. Weird. "How did you find out about it? Did Megamind tell you everything?" Dani copied Roxanne, not wanting to seem more out of place than she already did. The fish had a weird texture…but it was good!

"Yeah, Megamind texted me last night. We text…a lot. You know, he uses _way_ too many emojis." (Roxanne thought Megs taking in those four superpowered kids was his version of impulse-buying four puppies. But she didn't say that.) She watched the homeless girl make a face as she chewed her food—it was so obvious Dani'd never had sushi—and continued. "I can't believe no one ever found the theatre. You guys must've been very smart to keep it hidden for so long."

"It was a lot of hard work." Dani didn't add, 'And we failed.' She dug into her side of rice and plainly said, "You would've been cool there. Invited in, and stuff. Kids liked you. You'd give homeless people sandwiches instead of just getting info and ditching them. You were cool with us—like Scottie."

"Who's Scottie? Your boyfriend? Girlfriend?"

Dani nearly choked on her food. "What? No! He's, like, a 40-year-old crazy dude that wandered in twice a year."

"Oh."

"Yeah. I mean…Sam probably had a crush on him, but he was _nuts_. He'd always say he was 'checking up on his most helpless citizens' and try to jam with the band. Called himself the Music Dude. Guy couldn't play to save his life…" Dani just stared at the soy sauce bottle, deep in thought. "…I hope he doesn't get in trouble, dropping in on the theatre again…"

"Because it's being remodeled?"

"…It was torn down." Dani pushed the soy sauce bottle back and forth with her power, keeping her finger on it to fool onlookers. Practicing her power in the silence distracted her from the ache in her heart.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Roxanne finally said. "Did you have a boyfriend there? A—"

"Girlfriend? No, I don't—I'm not usually this friendly."

Roxanne was trying to figure out why Dani wanted to go back. It was kinda obvious. Dani changed the subject.

"What about you, you and Mr. Blue Sky really together?" the girl asked.

"You heard the rumors, then…yes, we're together. We've been trying this dating thing for real since…has it been a year? Since the Tighten thing. You know, Megamind really is worried about you, they all are." Roxanne took a sip of her drink.

"Megamind just wants his powers back." Dani hadn't had someone worry about her—REALLY worry about her—in so long…she didn't believe Roxanne. The soy sauce seemed to move across the table on its own when Dani sat back in a huff.

Roxanne knew arguing with her wouldn't help. "I don't think that's true. He mentioned you got those girls to safety—don't you care about them? You sounded like you did, in your note—"

"Of course I care about them."

"Go back for them. Megamind just—well, he thinks you'll all be good fits for your powers, but no one wants another Tighten."

Dani was perfectly still, glaring daggers at the soy sauce.

"You know who Tighten was, don't you? He was the first—"

"I KNOW WHO TIGHTEN WAS!"

The whole restaurant fell deathly silent. Even the chef behind the sushi bar stared at the scraggly girl whose voice suddenly filled the room. She felt their eyes on her and sat back down. The soy sauce bottle had tipped over—she righted it, not making eye contact with anyone.

"No show here, folks, just go back to your sushi." Roxanne told the restaurant. The scattered patrons listened.

Dani was just staring down at her half-finished food. She was gonna get kicked out, she just knew it. Roxanne surprised her by leaning in, taking the girl's hand, and softly asking, "What's wrong, Dani? What happened to you?"

The girl was silent a while. Torn.

"…Don't tell anyone about this." she finally said. "Even Megamind."

"I won't. Scout's honor." Roxanne did the Boy Scout salute, just because.

Dani smiled at that. She'd been holding onto painful memories for too long—it was time someone knew. The homeless girl started to talk in a quiet voice.

"My nickname's Gypsy, you may already know…Gypsy of the East Coast. I've been travelling a long time. I made three trips, from Boston to Florence and back. But I wasn't alone…his name was Justin."

Justin's nickname was Mr. Bright Side, Dani explained. They named each other after songs. He'd lost his home to the floods in New Orleans, and she'd lost her parents to a drunk driver. Justin really was Mr. Bright Side—he matched her cynicism with undying optimism. He'd keep their schemes morally clean, and always found little good things to enjoy, no matter their situation. She kept him grounded and focused (she thought he had a touch of ADHD). He was taller than her—he always brought that up—with dark skin, short-cropped hair, and an N'Orleans accent. They danced together for crowds in parks and flirted their way to restaurant leftovers at the end of the day. It was far from a perfect life—but they made it by.

Metro City was their goal. Their dream. They heard whispers about it in camps and makeshift shelters. It was the best city on Earth, with a real-life superhero watching over it! The city looked so bright and beautiful when they finally made it. They slept in different places each night, living as good as street urchins could.

That fateful day came all too soon. They were in the plaza during the dedication of the Metro Man Museum. They'd pickpocket people, then return whatever they'd taken, staying "You dropped this". Some people rewarded them. Most didn't, but enough did that they'd eat well for a month. They splurged on ice cream. Justin even got Dani a t-shirt. "What Would Metro Man Do?", it read. Both kids got way into the celebration—they even jumped to catch high-five from the man of the hour. Then Metro City's resident supervillain attacked.

Justin and Gypsy clung to each other—helpless—as Metro Man was blasted off the face of the Earth.

They had nowhere else to go. They had to stay in the city and survive, however they could. Things got very bad very quickly. The city was trashed, and homeless people faced threats from disappearing resources and lawless criminals alike.

"Then…things got _better_." Dani said. "You know—you were there. The streets got cleaned up. And not just the rich-people streets. Sidewalk spikes got torn up. Criminals, they were more afraid of Megamind than Metro Man! No one knew _why_ it was happening. In the camps, people started to talk…we thought he was a defender of the underdogs. Not the Mayor and the rich families—the poor, the misfits, the ex-cons, and…those of us with "different" skin colors."

Roxanne nodded. "And then…?"

"Tighten."

The average citizen could get out, but the destitute and the homeless, the best they could do was hide and pray. Metro City was under siege. Tighten did more damage to the city than all of Megamind's plans combined. He didn't care what—or who—he set on fire, the city was his playground. Gypsy and Bright Side took shelter in an abandoned office building to wait out the storm.

Mr. J. Walker and Rhonda had commandeered a fleet of vans and busses. They made rounds in the city, evacuating anyone that couldn't get out on their own. The two kids didn't see the transports scanning the streets.

A mass exodus was taking place. The city seemed totally abandoned. Smoke rose on the horizon, and Justin was keeping watch by the window while Dani tried to catch some sleep. They'd sleep in shifts when things got really bad. Dani remembered opening her eyes the slightest bit to see Justin framed by the cracked window. She traced the shape of his features. Noted the color of his eyes. He was watching for something in the sky. His expression grew fearful—he got up, called her name, and—

The building was cut in half by a red beam.

A wall of fire cut Dani off from Justin. They couldn't even hear each other's screams over the tremendous noise.

Dani was up almost immediately. The floor started tilting under her sneakers. The building was shrieking, groaning—collapsing all around her. Justin was nowhere to be found. She looked as long as she could before escaping through the stairwell, out into the ruined streets.

She never found her Bright Side. The yin to her yang, the sun to her moon, was gone from her life. None of his names (real or fake) were listed on any shelter sign-in, or any church billboard. A girl named Shay found her sleeping on the steps of the newly-opened Megamind Museum one night, and brought her to an abandoned theatre on 21st and Magnolia. A year later, the theatre was taken away from her, too.

"…I'm so sorry about that boy." Roxanne said, when the story was done. "But you still have those girls. That's something. Maybe Megamind, Minion, and I can make up for what happened…if you give us a chance. It's up to you."

Half an hour later, the KMCP van pulled up in front of the Evil Lair. Roxanne got out of the driver's seat. Afternoon sun had finally broken through the clouds, painting the whole scene in golds. The three girls heard the van and came running out to greet it. They'd spent the morning scouring the city in the invisible car with Minion (Megamind took the air-bike), with no sign of the Rroma girl.

She stepped out of the passenger side—still holding her bag. Her eyes were downcast. She didn't see Julie until the younger girl almost tackled her with a hug. The others were on her in seconds, all babbling at once. Dani's look of surprise was almost comical. They'd missed her—they really had.

Megamind didn't seem mad at all. Even about the Cup Noodles. (He honestly thought the Brain Bots had gotten into them again.) Megamind and Roxanne chatted while the girls peppered Dani with questions.

"What were you THINKING?" Julie demanded to know.

"What happened?!" That was Kat.

"How did you get all the way to the warehouses?" Julie again.

"I'M NEVER LETTING GO OF YOUR LEG!" Anne shouted. (She was, indeed, hugging Dani's leg.)

"Guys, I'll—I'll tell you when we get inside. Sorry…for everything." Dani said. "Anne? You can let go now, I'm not leaving…Anne, you're floating, you're carrying me up—ANNE—"


End file.
